弦子的“我也是”使命：在审查和诉讼中不断战斗She’s on a #MeToo Mission in China, Battling Censors and Lawsuits

来源：纽约时报 2019-01-07 05:56

BEIJING — On a sleepless night last summer, her siamese cat Star at her feet, Zhou Xiaoxuan, a 25-year-old screenwriter in Beijing, took out her cellphone and began writing furiously about the day that had haunted her for years.

In 2014, as a fresh-faced intern at China Central Television, the state-run broadcaster, she was asked to bring fruit to the dressing room of Zhu Jun, a famous anchor. It was there, she said, that Mr. Zhu began forcibly kissing and groping her. (Mr. Zhu has denied the accusations.)

Ms. Zhou’s essay about the experience, which she posted online in July, was an impassioned plea for women’s rights in China — and a daring rebuke of the status quo.

弦子于7月发布在网上的一篇文章讲述了这段经历，饱含感情地发出中国女性权利的吁求——也是对现状的大胆谴责。

“It’s important for every girl to speak up and say what she has suffered,” she wrote in the essay, which totaled more than 3,000 Chinese characters. “We need to make sure society knows that these massacres exist.”

Soon, after a friend of a friend reposted Ms. Zhou’s essay on Sina Weibo, a microblogging site, it quickly spread across the Chinese internet and inspired women to come forward with their own stories of abuse. It became so popular that the Chinese government intervened, blocking comments and banning the state-run news media from covering her case.

Ms. Zhou was overwhelmed. In a matter of days, she had emerged as a hero of China’s fledgling #MeToo movement, a symbol of hope for young women tired of a patriarchal culture. But she had also become a target for hate, receiving hundreds of threatening messages.

Then Mr. Zhu, 54, fired back. In August, he filed a lawsuit against Ms. Zhou describing her accusations as “blatantly fabricated and viciously spread.” He asked for about $95,000 in damages, saying Ms. Zhou had harmed his reputation and caused emotional distress.

Ms. Zhou, who is known in China by a nickname, Xianzi, thought about retreating. Instead, she became emboldened, filing a lawsuit of her own against Mr. Zhu claiming damage to her dignity. “Let’s get ready to fight,” she wrote online.

她考虑过退缩，后来却变得更加勇敢，她对朱军提起诉讼，声称其损害了她的名誉。“开始准备战斗吧，”她在网上写道。

Since then, Ms. Zhou has become a leading feminist voice in China, setting out to push the limits of China’s #MeToo movement, which has struggled to gain footing in the face of censorship and reluctance by the authorities to investigate cases of sexual harassment and assault.

Ms. Zhou has helped abused women seek justice, accompanying them to police stations to file criminal reports. She has criticized the government and society at large for not doing more to protect women against domestic violence. And she has meticulously chronicled her legal battle, publishing a diary about her triumphs and setbacks.

Ms. Zhou acknowledges that women in China face many obstacles, including vaguely defined laws on rape and harassment and a culture that often blames women, not men, in cases of sexual abuse. But she says she is optimistic that attitudes will change.

“Once you light the spark that starts a fire,” she said recently at her home in east Beijing, “it will have an impact on people’s hearts.”

“星星之火，可以燎原，”她最近在北京东部的家中说，“它将对人们的内心产生影响。”

Growing up in Wuhan, an industrial city in central China, Ms. Zhou watched as many families in her hometown seemed to value sons over daughters, a practice going back hundreds of years. Her own parents, worried that as a woman she might face harassment or violence, forbade her from taking public transportation until she was 13.

It was not until the summer of 2014, during her internship at China Central Television, or CCTV, that Ms. Zhou says she fell victim to China’s male-dominated culture.

弦子说，直到2014年夏天在中央电视台实习时，她才成了中国男权文化的受害者。

The internship at CCTV, working on Mr. Zhu’s signature show, “Artist,” was a prestigious job for Ms. Zhou, then a college junior who aspired to work in the film industry.

在央视实习期间，她在朱军的招牌节目《艺术人生》节目组工作。对于渴望进入电影行业的一名大三学生来说，这是一个相当理想的工作经历。

Mr. Zhu is CCTV royalty, a former singer, actor, dancer and clarinetist for the People’s Liberation Army with an illustrious 25-year career at the network. He is best known as a host of the annual Lunar New Year gala, a program that is viewed by more than 700 million people. On “Artist,” which ended in late 2017, he was famous for asking emotional questions that prompted his guests to cry.

On the day she says she was forcibly kissed and groped by Mr. Zhu, Ms. Zhou and another intern were invited to interview the famed anchor in his dressing room. When the other intern stepped out of the room, she says, Mr. Zhu turned to Ms. Zhou, grabbing her hand and telling her he could read fortunes. He then dragged her toward him and start kissing her, she says, even as she resisted. She ran out of the room when a guest arrived at the door.

Mr. Zhu’s lawyers and CCTV did not respond to requests for comment. In court filings, he said Ms. Zhou’s accusations were “made out of nothing and a severe misrepresentation.”

朱军的律师和央视没有回复置评请求。在向法院提交的文件中，他称弦子的指控是“凭空捏造，与事实严重不符”。

Mr. Zhu is also suing Xu Chao, a friend of Ms. Zhou’s who first reposted her essay and Sina Weibo, the microblogging platform that published the essay.

朱军还起诉了弦子的朋友徐超，后者在新浪微博上转发了弦子的文章。

After the dressing room incident, Ms. Zhou ran to the police.

更衣室骚扰事件后，弦子去派出所报案。

But the officers urged her to drop her complaints, she said, arguing that Mr. Zhu was a force for good in society and warning that she might endanger the jobs of her parents. (Her father worked as a civil servant and her mother at a state-owned firm.)

但她说，警察劝她不要报警，称朱军是对社会有益的人物，而且警告她，这有可能危及父母的工作（她的父亲是一名公务员，母亲在一家国企工作）。

For years, Ms. Zhou stayed silent, telling only her parents and closest friends about the incident, fearing she would be misrepresented.

数年来，弦子一直保持沉默，只告诉了父母和最亲密的朋友，她担心自己会遭到抹黑。

“People are not allowed to show their pain and wounds,” she said. “Many women worry they will be seen as whining.”

“人们不允许展示自己的痛苦和创伤，”她说。“许多女性担心别人觉得她们在抱怨。”

In July, while eating dinner with friends, she saw a #MeToo post by a childhood friend who had been assaulted. She was moved to tell her own story as a show of support to her friend and to let her male friends know that sexual misbehavior was widespread. She stayed up all night writing, posting her essay shortly after 5 a.m.

“I wanted to let my friends know, through this post, that #MeToo was very close to them,” she said.

“我是想让我的朋友们通过这个帖子知道，“#我也是”运动离他们很近，”她说。

Advocates for women’s rights say that Ms. Zhou’s example has made it easier for other women to share their stories of abuse. While China’s #MeToo movement is small, complaints by women over the past year against college professors, tech executives, religious leaders and nonprofit executives, among others, have drawn wide attention.

“More young people are willing to stand up and speak,” said Huang Yizhi, a lawyer in Beijing who specializes in gender discrimination cases. “They are no longer afraid.”

“比较多的年轻人愿意站出来讲，”专门致力于性别歧视案件的北京律师黄溢智说。“然后越来越多的年轻人他不再畏惧。”

Ms. Zhou says she considers herself lucky, not courageous, because her case earned wide attention in the news media. Many women in China struggle to be heard, she said, noting that some victims wait in line for days at police stations, only to be ignored.

“The obstacles that other women experience is beyond my imagination,” she said. “It’s almost impossible for their cases to be resolved.”

“其他女性所经历的障碍是我无法想象的，”她说。“她们的案子几乎没有办法解决。”

On her Weibo page, she offers a mix of inspirational slogans (“the light will come”) and reflections on her own struggles. In one recent post, she recounted how she disliked a photo taken by a journalist because it made her look like a powerless victim.

“I am in a cage, lacking courage, insignificant, flinching and escaping, just like this photo,” she wrote. “I hope that girls can get more protection and that when they face the camera, they can laugh openly.”

On a smoggy October day, Ms. Zhou strode into a courthouse in northwest Beijing for her first appearance in Mr. Zhu’s lawsuit. During the proceedings, she was asked to provide evidence of the assault and to recount what had happened.

在10月一个阴霾天，弦子步入了北京西北部的一座法庭，首次在朱军诉讼案中露面。在法庭程序中，她被要求提供遭受侵犯的证据，并叙述事件经过。

After the court session ended, Ms. Zhou, nervous and frightened, said she felt so tired that she wanted to vomit.

庭审结束后，紧张害怕的弦子说，她感到太累以至于想呕吐。

At a sidewalk news conference, a journalist asked if she felt she was under pressure. Ms. Zhou paused for a moment, taking stock of her ordeal.